Jamie Reid

Work and Play

1972

© Jamie Reid, courtesy Isis Gallery, London

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In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: Sixty years

Free entry
Artist
Jamie Reid born 1947
Medium
Printed papers, poster paint and ink on paper
Dimensions
Support: 710 x 508 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by Tate Members 2009
Reference
T12837

Display caption

This work is one of a number made by Reid that present a satirical narrative of a middle-class couple, the ‘young executive’ Nigel, his wife Cecilia and their cat Poot. Reid examines the success, affluence, leisure and the aspirational conformity of suburban life and Poot’s desire for ‘a more engaging reality’. Here, the nature of Nigel and Cecilia’s lifestyle and their ‘keeping up of appearances’ is evident in the niceness of their home, the abundance in their kitchen, the connection between suburbia and the enslavement of work, and the utopian hope for leisure in the face of the revolution.

Gallery label, September 2018

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